So that`s very interesting. Where are you from, poor eastern bro? And how you get ps.es client? For example I can download only .com client from ps.es.

So I can confirm with a doubt now that yes, as star51 trip-reports, people outside of Spain and France can sign up to dot-es and play on the new player pool. This is unambiguously PokerStars' explicit plan; however it may not be particularly promoted. The website redirection thing will be fixed so going directly to dot-es should work, but it's not a high priority.

There would be the need you also put the text part of the regulation where it shows , who can have a Spanish based account.

As far as i know the common thing in all these 3 markets ES-PT-IT
is:

To have an account you must be based in the country of origin.

Es account you must be based in Spain

Please see the text of the regulations : Who can open an account




Rest seems hilarious and illogic , although not impossible knowing how stupid some lawmakers are.

The Spanish gov would charge 25%-40% of earnings to Spanish residents but at the same time allow a guy from other country to play with 0 tax ?
Meaning they would get 0

If this is true i think 2 things will happen


1- Wont last long

2- Spanish Gov will penalyze stars and ask for tax money (they did it before remember ?)

I also think , Stars doing this by taking advantage of a legal breach is close to suicide....
They will get themselves into problems

This is going off the deep end a bit and erring into troll territory. I'm trying to help - if you don't want to listen to what i'm saying, that's fine; i have no agenda here. This will be my last post on this topic as I feel like I've laid out all the facts as I know them, as clearly as I can.

I have read the Spanish regs. I'm not really sure why you're arguing this - I can tell you none of the above is true. Are you really saying that 888 and party flouted the regs for months and months with no repurcussions, and now PokerStars is going to do this same? [edit: this is rhetorical!]

I don't think you understand how the tax works. Spanish igaming regulations charge ~22% tax on gaming revenue. Revenue generated from all spanish accounts (including foreigners!) will be declared to Spanish authorities.

So no, Spain will not collect "zero from a guy from other country". They will collect gaming revenue.

Seperate to this, Spanish winners must pay a personal income tax on their profits, much like elsewhere.

Already do, and it is paid.

Yes, they collected back-tax before licenses were sent out, arguing that operators ran online gambling in the country prior to regulation which was illegal. Operators paid up because they couldn't risk not getting a license. Not sure how this is relevant.

Just to clarify - this is only for Spanish citizens right?

IE if I sign up so that I can play poker while in Spain but am still resident elsewhere I won't owe any tax?

Also, do you have the email address to get a download/sign up link?

I guessed at support@pokerstars.es but didn't hear back.

That's how I understand it - your personal tax obligation is normally be your country of residence and/or citizenship. Wherever you normally declare your tax is where you'll declare any winnings on PokerStars.ES - that the gaming licenses is in Spain doesn't change that fact. You don't owe the Spanish tax man something for your profits from playing from e.g. Germany.

[With that said, I'm not a tax expert and I know things get really murky and differ per country; e.g. there's the whole "poker winnings are tax free when the gaming server is in Malta (i.e. EU) but not under Isle of Man (non-EU)" for some countries, which I never really fathomed. That doesn't apply in this case, just using as an example of the confusing nature of these taxes]

Great thanks, makes sense. Any idea about a contact to get the download link?

not exactly, as in some EU countries (and ROW as well I think) winnings from poker are tax free and do not have to be declared at all, so the guy which playing from such countries will have 20% more money in pocket than same level player which is Spanish tax resident.

situation is even more extreme with France as there pro players need to pay up 40% of there winnings for tax office, social security etc (which is imo not that bad cause at least they can profit from all benefice as all liberal professions). however it is simply impossible to compete (at financial level) for them with ROW which is tax free and have more than twice cheaper cost of living. it will simply put them in situation where they have to live country if they want be pro.

this situation is very particular. normally in EU tax from gambling have to be paid in countries of residence, doesn't matter where they have been earned. but if you are pro the situation can change as than you are considered as worker and I believe tax can be applied at some point (in Spain income tax for non-residents on earnings gained in Spain is about 19% I believe). the best what you can do if you earn a lot from poker is to contact tax adviser in respective country. but probably not have to worry about it till you do not earned good 5 figure number. (described situation is more likely to have place in France as, in France pro poker player recently start to be recognized as professional with his rights an duties. not sure for Spain but I think is not a case)

^ I wouldn't dispute any of that, I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. I'm in the UK so have enjoyed tax free winnings much of my professional poker career. All I meant was, like in many other places, Spanish pros must pay their income tax on winnings. Of course the rate and how it all works differs for every country.

I opened a new account and asked the support to email one for me. Took ~2hours and received the links. Used the contact us from my account.

Cheers for the reply. When I tried to open a new account it recognised my email from .EU and told me to login to that account. How did you get around that, just use a different email I guess?

I am just trying to understand the logic of this situation.

Can you please link me to the text/regulations of Spain ? (About opening an account)
That information is not the one i have , or if you could copy paste here in case its not very long it would be great

I dont know what happened in 888 or party , they still operate in Spain ?
Why did they do it for months and reading from what you wrote , after that they stoped ?

About the tax what i was referring it was precisely the tax payed by players not the gaming revenue payed by a site .

So.....4 countries make a deal with a closed market and one of them would allow players from abroad to enter that market , and only get the revenue from those players
At the same time you say Pokerstars.fr closed so Pokerstars would move ROW to Spain where tax is lower .

What puzzles me and amuses me its this :

Now what do you think the Italy or Portuguese or France gov will do when one of the members of this "treaty" would get ALL the row players
in theyr client and all the 22% gaming revenue ?

+

"The technical system ensures that players with a Spanish user account can only share liquidity with players with accounts registered in EEA countries whose authorities have signed the July agreement [currently France, Italy and Portugal]"


I completely understand your point/interpretation however and once again

Spain states clearly they can only play with countries in EEA+July agreement but at the same time they would allow players OUTSIDE the EEA to register
making this agreement and principle behind it completely ignored.

Do you see any logic in this ?

In legal terms is completely illogical , please notice this
im not criticising you , im thankfull for your information , its just that this doesnt make any sense.I think everything is possible btw

If this is true i ask myself if its complete incompetence from the spanish gov
and what will the other countries do when they know this.
At the same time if Pokerstars knows what was the spirit of the agreement
+ the law , by allowing this i doubt they come out unharmed.

+ UK or Denmark and Belgium residents can not play in the Stars.es while they are part of the EEA however Spain would allow a Chinese or Brazilian to register in theyr site ?

Sorry for the long post

Yeah.

I can tell for France : "nothing to comment on Spanish regulation strategy as long as July 2018 agreement terms are respected."

Not sure what you mean , the July agreement is very clear
only those 4 Countries can share the pool = Players who are based in those Countries , this what you can read in everything about this issue.

If the idea was different they would just go to the .com international pool
this seems so obvious i struggle to make sense of this mess.

If you want to download from .es and are getting wrong download use a proxy and go to pokerstars.es

eg

proxyweb.com.es

and go to url pokerstars.es

YW

Tried to download the .ES software, but i get an error saying the software isnt compatible with my PC. Tried both Windows and iOS.

I just meant to inform about the ARJEL statement in that matter, as I asked them as part of my activities.

The agreement is about sharing pools, no matter what is in the pools. After all,ARJEL did never say anything about access to foreigners from Winamax, Pokerstars, Turbopoker ...

from pokerscout Peak Traffic History records it seems that .es player pool has doubled from day 15th to 16th, it was a tuesday so it explaind the peak, however from the other days trend it seems obvious at least 1000 new players have joined the pool

http://www.pokerscout.com/SiteDetail...sES&ab=2134858

Right, but a look into the Zoom-lobby makes it look like a ghosttown. Above NL25 6max nothing is running (i'm not counting the 4 guys battleing at NL500). Looks like Stars.es needs liquidity and therefor the move to open doors for ROW.

I agree that these 4 countries need liquidity but stars.es is going to capture almost none ROW players since when they try to open account they will be redirected to .com client and if they already play on .com they have no incentive to change to .es.

therefor ghost town will soon be reg ville

In the zoom games, looks like the ratio of regs to recs (based on multitabling, i don't know either player pool) is much worse on .ES than .EU.

Could be because of the time of day but doesn't look promising, especially with higher rake.

Pokerstars should change the es,fr market to anonymus like bodog.